


wherever we go (our ghosts follow)

by kaleksandrah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Christianity, Families of Choice, Gen, Historical References, Mentioned Booker | Sebastien le Livre, crusades - mentioned, discussions about faith, free tourist trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleksandrah/pseuds/kaleksandrah
Summary: Once they are back in Europe, Nicky tends to disappear at least once every week, sometimes for several hours, and comes back very silent; and Nile only sees it because Joe isn’t disappearing along.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 31
Kudos: 335





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> [Solrosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/profile) said Nile and Nicky discussing their faith and few days later my brain said Prussian Crusades, so here we are, with a weird mixture of both. This is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written, but I try to tell myself that it makes sense plotwise. Also this is the first fic I've written in ages. Also English is not my first language and this one wasn't beta'ed. Pls bear with me.

Nile soon realizes two things.

The first one is that all of them – Andy, Nicky and Joe – must already know each and every city, if not in the world, then in Eurasia at least. What _century_ they know them from is another matter. They come back to Europe after two very eventful months in Southern America and Nile sees it immediately, wherever they go, be it Paris, Florence, Sarajevo, Prague – that empty spot in the corner of their eyes, as if something was haunting them.

But she feels they still know her too little – or _she_ knows them too little – to mention it.

The second thing is that once they are back in Europe, Nicky tends to disappear at least once every week, sometimes for several hours, and comes back very silent; and Nile only sees it because Joe isn’t disappearing along.

She doesn’t mention it either, even though both Andy and Joe seem to know exactly where Nicky is disappearing to and she feels left out and a little tad curious.

But Nicky was nothing but kind to her from the very beginning, so she doesn’t want to pry.

It isn’t until they are in some Polish city at the Baltic Sea – its name too difficult for her to pronounce so Joe suggests she calls it Danzig, as Germans do – that her curiosity is finally satisfied. They are there only for two days, quick repacking and waiting for the ferry to Sweden – they try to avoid planes whenever they can – and Andy gives Nile a break from constant training that she’s been subjected to every day since the fall from that asshole’s tower. Nile would think it nice if it wasn’t for the weather; it was only March and northern Poland was freezing, the wet breeze coming from the sea making it even worse.

‘At least there are no tourists’ says Joe almost cheerfully and Nicky adds ‘Come, we’ll show you our favorite spots. If you want.’ and _of course_ , Nile thinks, of course they have been here before.

It really seems as if they’ve been everywhere.

Danzig’s Old Town turns out to be really pretty, even if somehow wet and foggy. It reminds her of Amsterdam – the old townhouses with narrow facades, big windows and cute little shops and cafes on their ground floors; the town hall made entirely from brick, its tower crowned with an impressive gilded statue; cobbled streets with no cars, left entirely for pedestrians; and the Long Market, wide and rich, coming straight to the river – and when she mentions it, Joe laughs.

‘Of course it reminds Amsterdam! It’s because Danzig was also a city of Hanze, so it took a lot after Dutch.’

He then goes on about the city’s history, and it’s never boring for Nile to listen to him or Nicky speak of previous centuries (it’s only ever them telling her stories; Andy never does and Nile knows that asking her wouldn’t change much), it’s never boring to listen to them speak of places that no longer exist and people that have been long gone, because it is always so full of _life_ , as if they’ve been there and they’ve seen it with their own eyes, even though Nile knows they couldn’t have, because yes, maybe they are immortals, but they sure can’t be in two places at the same time. She listens, when they come down the Long Market towards the river; they can’t often afford moments like this, carelessly strolling through the old streets without danger of landing in some selfie’s background or being recognized, but Danzig’s Old Town is empty, no tourists, just as Joe predicted; only them and their steps on the cobbled street and Joe’s story, loud in the sleepiness of the March air.

They pass the old town gate and the river opens before them, its banks high, the narrow fronts of townhouses facing the water. There is a bridge, just after the gate, but they do not cross it; they continue along the river, towards what appears to be an old sailing ship anchored by the embankment, and just behind it, a weird-shaped building that must be a medieval harbor crane. Joe talks, gesturing as they go, and sometimes Nicky interrupts him with a huff of laughter when he starts to exaggerate too much, and Nile loves that easiness that flows so naturally between them and which they’ve tried to extend to her since that night in a French church.

‘Joe’ says Nicky, stopping just a dozen feet in front of the old ship. ‘Maybe here?’

‘Ah yes’ Joe smiles at him. ‘This is a nice street.’

They turn and go through an arched gate in a high, brick building, and when the street comes into the view Nile thinks that yes, this is nice indeed. She takes out her phone to take a photo, to memorize this view: the street is narrow and the colors of the houses already faded, some almost black, but each townhouse has a stoop in front of them, its platforms big enough, Nile supposes, to serve as a place for a few cafe tables in summer. But of course it is March now, and the stoops are bare, just as several plants and flower bushes planted between them and the street.

‘It is so much nicer during summer’ murmurs Nicky and burrows his nose in the scarf that he’s wearing, probably without thinking of it, and Nile laughs.

‘It’s nice enough now’ she says. ‘What’s the church?’

Joe smiles.

‘Oh yes, we’re coming just to it.’

The church is hard to miss. The street is maybe four hundred feet long and comes right at the high nave, its huge windows clearly in Gothic style, but the rest is nothing like Gothic churches Nile has seen in France. It’s not bright and elegant, stretching to the sky and God, but raw and overwhelming, its brick side facade a dark, flat plane without any outer supports that are so characteristic for French churches. The facade just goes up and up and up, completely on its own, as if defying the laws of physics, and it seems to be even higher with each step they take towards it. Nile doesn’t know what’s more agitating: the brick facade or its black, huge windows, that make the whole church look like it’s been abandoned long time ago. Unreal.

‘How high is it?’ she asks with wonder, when they finally come to the end of the street and stand eye to eye with a monstrous church.

‘Ninety feet, give or take’ answers Joe, stopping beside her, his head up, looking at the nave towering over them. ‘It used to be lower originally, because Teutonic Order didn’t allow it to be built as high as the city council wanted to. Oooh, Henryk was livid, he almost said something really stupid in front of the Grand Master.’ Joe chuckles to himself. ‘Want to go inside?’

Nile looks at him then, partly because she starts to feel dizzy with staring up, partly because of what he’s just said, and realizes that Nicky is no longer with them. But—

‘Wait. You were here, when they built it? What year was it?’ 

‘When they _started_ to build it’ corrects her Joe. ‘I don’t know, thirteen forty something? It took them another two centuries to finish it though.’

Nile furrows her brow, because she knows by now that they never go to any place just because they want to see it, that there’s always a bigger reason behind it, and as pretty as Danzig is, she can’t imagine what important could have happened here, so far up the North.

‘What brought you _here_ of all places in thirteen forty something?’ she asks.

Joe runs his hand through his hair, looking sheepish, as if he’s said too much this time.

‘Ah’ he says. ‘We came here actually much earlier. Twelve seventy? Must have been.’

‘But _why_?’ Nile insists. ‘What happened here in twelve seventy?’

Joe gives her a smile, but this one is sad with sadness centuries old.

‘What could have happened here? Another war that they called a crusade against the last pagans still thriving in the wild North.’ Joe looks up at the church again, as in thought, and Nile sees it again, that haunted look in his eyes and oh. _Oh_. It’s this kind of a story.

‘It was… difficult time. For us. For Nicky. Hell, I think for Europe too. You can imagine that I wasn’t really keen on coming all that way from Malta to the cold North, but once Nicky heard that the pope himself calls for crusades against Baltic pagans… we had to come here.’

Something flips in Nile’s stomach. Of course she knows when and how Nicky and Joe met, how they killed each other _and_ others in this war between two religions, where God was a justification for everything. She just wouldn’t think that after two centuries Nicky would still—

‘It was probably the most miserable journey I’ve ever had to endure’ Joe continues. ‘So much _swamps_ , you can’t imagine. There isn’t a place on Earth now that would have so much swamps. But finally we managed to come to Vilnius and offered our service to duke Mendog, who was already actively fighting with the Teutonic Order.’

Nile is shocked for a while.

‘You fought against Christians? I mean’ she clears her throat ‘I know _you_ fought against Christians, but Nicky—’

Joe looks at her and laughs, but it’s a bleak one.

‘Oh, he was merciless’ he says. ‘He hated Teutonic Knights, said they were a disgrace to Christian faith. We tried to help the Prussians in the uprising against the Order. We fought many battles.’

He sighs and looks up again, at the church, and Nile understands.

‘You lost.’

‘Yeah. There are no more Prussians. No more Yotvingians. The Lithuanians survived, but in the end they were forced to make a pact with the Polish Crown. So they could be officially no longer pagans.’ He looks back at her and his eyes are heavy. ‘Do you want to go inside? I’ll wait here.’

Nile only nods, unable to speak, her throat suddenly tight. So much destruction and hate, and in the name of what? The name of God is no justification, she knows, and she refuses to believe that the people back then – some of them at least, anyone! – didn’t know it. There had to be the ones that saw the truth of it, that what they were doing was far from God’s will, right? Like Nicky. But then she thinks how would Nicky’s life go on if he didn’t fall in love with Joe. What if—

The interior of the church is entirely white. It’s so surprising that Nile stops just after the door, her thoughts suddenly scattered and forgotten. It’s entirely white and that whiteness is making it seem even bigger, the stellar vault and pillars supporting it impossibly high. The light is coming through the windows as high as all three naves, casting irregular shadows on the dark, stone floor. It’s nothing like the outside, but bright and elegant and reaching to the sky and God. Nile takes a deeper breath and calm comes upon her, as if she stepped into a familiar space, despite never being here before.

There are some people in the nave, she notices. A tiny nun in the gray habit, lighting candles in the side chapel, an old woman kneeling in the pew, lost in her prayer, a teen boy looking at the medieval art and altars, almost tripping on his own feet. They are all silent, their moves mere whispers in the air that smells like incense and wood and burned candles.

Nile moves from the door and that’s when she spots Nicky. Of course she had no doubt he’d be there, not after Joe’s insistence that she goes inside; both of them are way too transparent in their worry for each other. She takes few steps to reach the closest raw of pew and stops. Nicky is in the middle of the church, a dark silhouette against the vast whiteness. He’s sitting, not kneeling; his head bowed, as if he was lost in thought, as if he fell asleep. Does he always go to sit in churches when he disappears in European cities? Is he praying or thinking, or neither of those? Nile gets in a pew, as silently as she can manage on the stone floor, afraid to make a noise that would cause Nicky to turn her way. How many centuries already has he been doing it, all of his own? Was it why Joe wanted her to come inside? To see him? To join him?

She sits down, bows her head and prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for curious souls:  
> [the church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Bazylika_Mariacka_DSC01870.jpg)  
> [its interior](https://www.historiaposzukaj.pl/assets/media/Zdjecia_miejsca_duze/19_Iglesia_de_Santa_Mara_Gdansk_Polonia_2013_05_20_DD_04_autorstwa_Diego_Delso._Licencja_CC_BY_SA_3.0_na_podstawie_Wikimedia_Commons.jpg)  
> [the street leading to it](https://img.pixers.pics/pho_wat\(s3:700/FO/39/27/45/59/700_FO39274559_cce6efcbf36a76613f1ddaff444c6df2.jpg,700,467,cms:2018/10/5bd1b6b8d04b8_220x50-watermark.png,over,480,417,jpg\)/fototapety-ulica-mariacka-w-gdansku.jpg.jpg)


	2. II.

In the evening they all go to their usual pub at the river, that has already changed its name and owner since the last time they were here, and Nicky marvels, how in most places they’ve been to, they make that one place _theirs_. How desperate they are to make any place _theirs_. The pub is almost empty, as it’s the middle of the week, only two other men at the bar, drinking their beers alone and in silence. It’s so different from the bars and restaurants in Mediterranean countries like Italy or Spain, where friends and families gather in the evenings to have a meal together, to laugh and spend some time with those who they love most. Northern Europe is not like that, not in March at least, and the gloominess of the locals only exaggerates Nicky’s own mood. He’s felt uneasy ever since he left St. Mary’s Basilica.

They order their usual, suggesting their favorite meals to Nile, and Joe jokes with the waitress in Polish, her response a wide smile and a quick laugh. When she goes away with their order, he turns to Nile and winks.

‘They are so nice, even when you butcher their language.’

‘Oh yeah’ agrees Andy, who has been watching the exchange with a slight smile. ‘Your pronunciation is slipping, Joe. What was it? A Russian accent? It’s a true miracle she understood you at all.’

Nicky huffs small laugh, when Joe sticks his tongue at Andy at that.

Their order comes – first drinks, then food, almost too fat for Nicky’s liking, but it fits the weather perfectly – and they sit and talk and try to teach Nile some basic Polish words which only ends in general amusement. Nicky sits there, silent, Joe’s presence solid and warm at his side and when he reaches absently to catch Nicky’s hand on the table, the smile slowly creeps on Nicky’s face. They exchange a quick look and Nicky sees the unspoken words in Joe’s eyes. This is them now. This is his family. And this is their place, one of many that they have made theirs.

_We’re here._

He knows Nile is watching him from the corner of her eye, when she thinks he doesn’t look her way. He knows she went inside the Basilica after him, with him and he knows that Joe suggested it to her on purpose. He already made a fuss about it, when they came back to their airbnb to change for the evening, but Joe, being Joe, only reached to him with one arm, his grip delicate, but sure on Nicky’s waist, and kissed that one spot on his neck, just below ear. Maybe she needs it too, mi amore, Joe said and they stayed like that – touching but not touching, Joe’s hand on Nicky’s waist the only real point of connection – until Andy called for them from the other room.

But Nicky knows that Joe sent Nile inside the Basilica, because he worries for him, even after a millennia. Because he still remembers how their first years together were like, and he knows how often Nicky thinks of it: coming back from death, like a God’s miracle, and then dying again and again and again, one senseless death after another, watching those whom he thought holy, only kill, destroy and ravage, his faith crumbling in its foundations, because what kind of God allows such monstrosities to be done in His name?

He thinks Nile much more stable than he’s ever been. She stands sure on the ground with her two feet and doesn’t accept any half-truths, even if the whole ones terrify her. But none of them came to peace with their own immortality easily, Nicky knows, not even Joe with his unwavering faith in the Almighty’s will.

The doubt always creeps in sooner or later.

‘Hey.’

Nicky refocuses on Nile, who looks at him from across the table with a weird mixture of concern and hesitance. Damn, he needs to get a grip. He didn’t think that coming here, to the city they first ended up in after that tragic crusade so many years ago, would affect him so much. He takes a quick look at Joe and Andy, who are now standing at the bar, both shamelessly flirting with the barmaid that is making their drinks, and Joe looks at him at the same moment, catching his eye. Nicky raises one brow and knows that for Joe that’s enough; that he understands.

Nile is still watching him with something too close to a worry, when he turns his gaze back from Joe.

He smiles.

‘How did you like St. Mary’s Basilica?’ he asks and wiggles his eyebrows and Nile must _know_ now, because she blushes instantly.

‘I– I liked it’ she stutters. ‘Very serene.’

‘Yes’ Nicky agrees, chuckling, both at the adjective she decided to use and her flustered face. ‘I like it too. Henryk must be turning in his grave though, his city council paid a fortune for the wall paintings and then, few centuries later, came Lutherans and painted everything white.’

‘Joe told me that you were here, when they started to build it’ says Nile nonchalantly, but Nicky can see her curiosity coming through.

‘Mhm. Did he tell you about Prussian crusade?’

Nile nods.

‘I was surprised’ she admits. ‘That you came all the way here.’

‘Joe complained about swamps again, didn’t he? He will never shut up about it.’ Nicky huffs a little laugh, because of course Joe will never forgive him the swamps of the Central Europe. ‘We did what we thought was right’ he says after a while. ‘Teutonic Order was… they had so little to do with original crusaders. So little to do with Christian values. But of course, then it wasn’t that easy, that straightforward. You must understand that–’ He takes a deep breath. ‘When I set for the crusade that later turned out to be the first of many, I really believed I was doing God’s will. That it was _mercy_ on my part, to fight and kill non-believers, or infidels, as we liked to call them. If not for Joe– We were different back then. People were different. You wouldn’t like us, if you met us back then.’

He takes a moment and looks at Joe, still standing at the bar, already sipping his drink and smiling at something that Andy says. It’s been so many years, but something still tightens in Nicky’s chest every time he looks at the love of his life. God, how lucky he was. They were.

‘And yet you did the right thing’ Nile says. ‘Here.’

Nicky sighs.

‘We tried. We tried to save as many innocents as we could, because after sacking of Constantinople–’ He has to take a deeper breath again, because it hurts, it still hurts so much and will that wound ever really heal? 

‘It was a mess’ he says at last. ‘We left when Lithuania made its pact with Polish Crown, because we thought it will be the end of that endless crusade. Of course it wasn’t, it never is. They fought each other for the next two centuries. I’m not sure God or Christianity was any real factor anymore. I’m not sure if it ever is. If you live long enough, you start to see that all our gods are not so different from each other.’

This must surprise Nile, it’s evident on her face.

‘How did you never quit?’ she asks and then she must rethink what she’s just asked him, because her eyes get huge and she’s starting to say ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s okay’ assures her Nicky and it really is. He never thought he’d want to discuss his faith with anyone, but then none of the others could really _get_ him, could they? But Nile can, they can understand each other on this, Nicky saw it from the very beginning. ‘You can ask me anything, okay?’

‘Okay.’ She smiles. ‘So—’

‘It brings me comfort’ Nicky says simply. ‘To believe. It’s an anchor. Something to turn to, something familiar. I carry this faith in my heart wherever I go and it brings me comfort in the darkest times. Isn’t it the same with you?’

‘Y-yeah.’ She swirls her empty beer glass in her hand. ‘You know’ she starts, uncertainly.

Nicky waits, patiently, because he understands at once that whatever is gnawing at her, it’s something that needs space left for it to be spoken aloud.

‘When Andy came to Afghanistan for me’ Nile says finally. ‘One of the first things she said to me was: God doesn’t exist. As if she was certain. As if she _knew_ for sure.’

‘She cannot know for sure’ Nicky says, quietly and seriously.

‘Can’t she though?’ Nile asks and there’s something raw in her voice. ‘She’s been around for a long time. God, probably longer than any religion that still exists. She _might_ know.’

Nicky shakes his head before he even realizes what he’s doing.

‘No’ he says shortly. ‘Nobody knows for sure if God exists. That’s why it’s called faith. I think Andy–’ he hesitates. ‘She’s seen a lot. Endless death, empires rising and falling. And she was alone for such a long time. I don’t blame her that she thinks her gods abandoned her. When you live as long as she has… You start seeing patterns in history, all horrible things in the world happening over and over and over again and with the same poor justifications and good never triumphs for long enough and you start thinking: is it even real? Is God real and where is He if he allows all of this to happen?’

He looks at the bar again and now Joe is looking straight at him, no smile, but the softness of his gaze almost makes Nicky cry.

‘Booker was right, you know’ he says, turning back to Nile and then realizes she wasn’t _there_. ‘He said, in the Merrick’s tower, that me and Joe don’t have any idea of what he and Andy were going through, because we have always had each other. He was right. And I’m so _furious_ that I couldn’t be there for them in the way they needed to, and that nobody else was there for them for a long time. Too long.’

He rubs his face with his hand. Nile stays silent and he doesn’t know what to tell her. He’d like to tell her many things, but he’s aware that words often are too shallow for what hides behind them. So he decides on the truth.

‘It won’t be easy’ he says. ‘Immortality. I can’t tell you it’ll be easy. We can only try to keep doing what we’ve always done, the right thing, over and over and over again. And there will be some darker times, when it stops making sense to you, but if that comes… I’m here. You have me and Joe and even Andy, alright? You can always come to us.’

He wishes they’d said it to Booker in as many words, before he started to drift away from them.

Nile smiles a little.

‘Alright’ she says at last. ‘But you know it goes both ways, right? So if you—’ Nile doesn’t finish and Nicky cocks his brow at her. ‘If you ever want company. When you pray, that is. We always used to pray together with… with my family. So I thought it could be nice. So you’re not alone.’ She looks at him with big eyes, almost terrified. ‘If not, just… just forget I said anything.’

Nicky looks at her for a long moment. How could he tell her? How could he tell her the true reason for which he likes to sit in European churches? That when he closes his eyes and only _feels_ – that unmistakable scent of incense and old wood mixed together and forever ingrained in the church’s air; the damp chill coming from its old, massive walls, be it stone or brick, it doesn’t matter, because it is the same in every church old enough – then he can pretend for a while that he’s home, Genova ten ninety four, and nothing has changed in the world of his youth? That he can pretend he didn’t see it crumbling at his feet, taking everything he knew and the man he once was, with it?

He chances a glance at Joe and the smile in those dark, gorgeous eyes makes his chest clench with love. And he smiles, sudden affection hitting him. This is just what Joe tried to tell him without words, wasn’t it. This is them now. In this time, this place. This is his family.

_We’re here._

‘It would be nice’ he says quietly to Nile and her face breaks in a brilliant grin.

*

When they finally arrive to Stockholm and Nicky goes to the church again – much chiller and even more serene than Danzig’s Basilica – he is no longer alone.

And for the first time in more years than he can really count, when he sits down and bows his head, he prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what it is anymore, but this movie ruined me.  
> Thanks for reading?


End file.
